If a Nonprofit Falls in the Forest …

Why is it that the nonprofit sector in the United States—which, in aggregate, is comprised of more than 1.5 million tax-exempt organizations—gets so little attention from the mainstream media?

Of the top 10 US newspapers by circulation, none have dedicated philanthropy beat reporters, while 9 of the 10 have auto industry reporters and 8 of the 10 have food industry reporters. The beat reporter designation is important because it means the publication has a dedicated person responsible for covering a designated industry in depth and with sophistication.

The Washington Post—the hometown newspaper for Washington’s policymakers—lost its philanthropy beat reporter in 2008. The New York Times—which still sets the agenda for much of what is considered important in media coverage of business, government, culture, and consumer affairs—dropped philanthropy as a formal beat a little over a year ago. That reporter, Stephanie Strom (who was widely viewed in the nonprofit sector as both eloquent and insightful), now covers the food and beverage industry. Similarly, USA Today lost its dedicated philanthropy reporter in January 2012. The Wall Street Journal’s coverage of the sector is confined to daily profiles of individual nonprofit personalities called “Donor of the Day.”

Broadcast journalists, for the most part, cover philanthropy largely in the context of US-focused disaster relief (think Sandy and Katrina, and the Oklahoma tornadoes). Even then, the focus is typically on “the human element”—how people deal with natural disaster and tragedy. National Public Radio, while it also focuses on issues such as disaster relief, seems more interested in covering public policy and social issues like homelessness or voting rights, rather than the nonprofit sector.

The philanthropy trades—Philanthropy Journal, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Nonprofit Quarterly, and others—obviously cover the nonprofit sector and do it well, but their articles are for people in the field, talking to peers. Valuable? Yes. Capable of informing national opinion on possible non-governmental solutions to societal issues? Not likely.

Why the lack of mainstream media interest in a sector that contributes so much to economic, civil, and cultural life in America?

The cynical response is that the nonprofit sector doesn’t advertise. Let’s put that aside.

But it isn’t simply that the nonprofit sector is large, diverse, and inherently unwieldy. The mainstream media is really missing the boat in not attempting to understand the sector’s non-economic impact on our country, our citizens, and our civic capital, as well as its proven ability to both innovate and implement in human services. And that’s important, particularly in an environment where government at all levels is strapped for the resources needed to invest in human services.

Nonprofits are incubators of programs and solutions that can really make a difference in how well and effectively we as a people address societal issues—whether or not they require government support. Examples abound. A local initiative by the Junior League of Calgary (part of my own organization) in the early 2000s, for example, became a pioneering program called Kids in the Kitchen that unites parents and children together in the anti-obesity movement. The program is now in its eighth year, and more than 200 Junior Leagues in Canada, the US, Mexico, and the UK have implemented it. There are other examples, but the point remains that nonprofits can try new things, experiment, and look at what works.

And, not to put too fine a point on it, nonprofits enable women and others to gain leadership experience that can exponentially increase the capacity of local communities.

Is this enough to convince the mainstream media to start covering the nonprofit sector as a source both of compelling ideas that address some of our most important societal problems, and as a major source of jobs and other economic activity? Probably not.

In the interim, then, perhaps we as leaders of nonprofit organizations large and small need to do a better job of explaining—to borrow a piece of business jargon—our value add. Because it’s a great story!

Is “collective impact” just a buzzword, or does it actually make an impact? Sarah Stachowiak of ORS Impact and Lauren Gase of Spark Policy Institute summarize eight important findings from a study examining collective impact’s effect on institutions, populations, and environments across 25 initiatives in the U.S. and Canada. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/does_collective_impact_really_make_an_impact

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